Battle lines are being drawn in the Labour leadership race as two candidates formally launch their bids for the top job.
Rebecca Long-Bailey and Emily Thornberry will both kick-start their campaigns tonight with speeches to win over the party’s 500,000-plus membership.
Corbyn allies’ favourite Rebecca Long-Bailey – who a poll put just ahead of rival Keir Starmer – will tell an audience in Manchester that she wants to end the “gentlemen’s club of politics”.
And in an opinion piece for The Guardian, she said Labour should have “stirred up a movement for real change” after the Brexit vote insyead of “winning procedural games in parliament.”
Labour has never had a female leader – and Sir Keir is the only man on the ticket. He was also a key figure in Labour’s parliamentary tactics over Brexit.
Meanwhile bookies’ outsider Emily Thornberry will launch her campaign in her home town of Guildford, where she grew up on the Bellfields Estate.
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The MP since 2005 will emphasise her experience – which appears to compare her to Ms Long-Bailey, Sir Keir and Jess Phillips, who all joined Parliament in 2015.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary – who is still fighting to get union and local party nominations to stay in the contest – will say: “Since coming to Parliament 15 years ago, I’ve been on the front-line in the fights against Climate Change, Universal Credit, and anti-Abortion laws in Northern Ireland.
“I’ve led the charge as Shadow Foreign Secretary against Donald Trump and the war in Yemen.
“And in the two years I shadowed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, I showed him up every time for the lying, reckless charlatan that he is.”
Admitting “we all know this is going to be a long, tough road back to power” she will add: “I want to be the woman, and I know I can be the woman, who stands up and leads the fightback against Boris Johnson.”
The two frontbenchers are up against shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, Wigan MP Lisa Nandy and Birmingham Yardley’s Jess Phillips in the contest, the result of which will be announced on April 4.
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Almost 15,000 people paid £25 this week to get a Labour leadership vote as a “registered supporter” – far fewer than the 180,000 who signed up in 2016.
Members have until this coming Monday to sign up for a vote.
Meanwhile, the five candidates must win the backing of either 5% of local parties or three affiliates – including trade unions and organisations like the Fabians – comprising 5% of affiliate membership.
Ms Long-Bailey was hit by a row yesterday after saying she personally disagrees with the law that allows abortions beyond 24 weeks’ term on severely disabled children.
Dozens of councillors and local party members, including the MP Stella Creasy, have signed a plea urging all candidates to “commit to defending and extending the reproductive rights of women across the UK.”
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service said only 289 terminations took place after 24 weeks’ term, and include children who would die soon after birth or need “constant medical intervention and may live in pain”.
A spokesman for Ms Long-Bailey stressed she had not been proposing any change to the law. Instead she had said there were no proposals to change time limits and wrote: “Labour would propose a wide public consultation on the detail of new laws and regulations.”
Speaking tonight, Ms Long-Bailey will say Westminster and London “felt like a million miles away” when she was growing up near Old Trafford – and doesn’t feel much closer today.
Ms Long-Bailey will say “proper democracy” takes power away from the “offshore bank account and places it on the ballot paper, so workers can have more and chief executives less, and we can tackle the climate crisis with a Green New Deal that unites all of Labour’s heartlands”.
“We will end the gentlemen’s club of politics and we will be setting out plans to go further by devolving power out of Westminster to a regional and local level.”
Tomorrow all five candidates to replace Jeremy Corbyn will go head-to-head for the first time in Liverpool for the first of 12 official leadership hustings.
Keir Starmer, who one poll put in the lead, will also address a campaign event this evening.
